Where What Never Was

For all the lavish indulgences,
the emptied places where the air
      was scored by laughter,
silence extinguishing the flames that shivered
beautiful reflections across bare walls,
everything behind in a shroud of gray.

I wish I thought to record it all,
the smiles loud enough to be heard in the dark,
before the temperatures dropped and the ice fell…
before they all took their coats, and their leave.

I’ve packed it away now, wrapped in gentle cocoons,
every ear marked note and scrambled
      reminder of how alive living can be,
of how we all fill each space with our own unique precision
and leave rents in the tapestry as our mementos, not repairable.

      …Never replaceable.

This glorious mourning, the cold baptism after the fire,
erases every trace of gold that was left behind,
and slows the blood when we stop to remember

      how beautiful it once was.